O had believed, or wanted to believe, in order to give herself a good excuse,
that Jacqueline would be uncommonly shy. She was enlightened on this score
the moment she decided to open her eyes.

The modest air Jacqueline assumed - closing the door to the mirrored make-up
room where she dressed and undressed - was in fact clearly intended to inflame
O, to instill in her the desire to force the door which, had it been left
wide open, she would never have made up her mind to enter. That O's decision
finally came from an authority outside herself, and was not the result of
that basic strategy, could not have been further from Jacqueline's mind.
At first O was amused by it. As she helped Jacqueline arrange her hair,
for example, after Jacqueline had taken off the clothes she had posed in
and was slipping into her turtle-neck sweater and the turquoise necklace
the same color as her eyes, O found herself amazingly delighted at the ideà
that the very same evening Sir Stephen would be apprised of Jacqueline's
every gesture - whether she had allowed O to fondle, through the black sweater,
her small, well-spaced breasts, whether she had lowered her eyelids till
those lashes, fairer than her skin, were touching her cheeks; whether she
had sighed or moaned. When O embraced her, she became heavy, motionless
and seemly expectant in her arms, her lips parted slightly and her hair
cascaded back. O always had to be careful to hold her by both her shoulders
and lean her up against the frame of a door or against a table. Otherwise
she would have slipped to the floor, her eyes closed, without a sound. The
minute O let go of her, she would again turn into ice and snow, laughing
and distant, and would say: "You've got lipstick on me," and would
wipe her mouth. It was this distant stranger that O enjoyed betraying by
carefully noting - so as not to forget anything and be able to relate everything
in detail - the slow flush of her cheeks, the smell of sage and sweat. Of
Jacqueline it was impossible to say that she was forbearing or that she
was on her guard. When she yielded to the kisses - and all she had so far
granted O were kisses, which she accepted without returning - she yielded
abruptly and, it seemed, totally, as though for ten seconds, or five minutes,
she had become someone else. The rest of the time she was both coquettish
and coy, incredibly clever at parrying an attack, contriving never to lay
herself open either to a word or gesture, or even a look which would allow
the victor to coincide with the vanquished or give O to believe that it
was all that simple to take possession of her mouth. The only indication
one had as a guide, the only thing that gave one to suspect troubled waters
beneath the calm surface of her look was an occasional, apparently involuntary
trace of a smile on her triangular face, similar to the smile of a cat,
as fleeting and disturbing, and as uncertain, as a cat's. Yet it did not
take O long to realize that this smile could be provoked by two things,
and Jacqueline was totally unaware of either. The first was the gifts that
were given to her, the second, any clear evidence of the desire she aroused
- providing, however, that the person who desired her was someone who might
be useful to her or who flattered her vanity. In what way was O useful to
her? Or was it simply that O was an exception and that Jacqueline enjoyed
being desired by O both because she took solace in O's manifest admiration
and also because a woman's desire is harmless and of no consequence? Still
in all, O was convinced that if, instead of bringing Jacqueline a mother-of-pearl
brooch or the latest creation of Hermes' scarves on which I Love You
was printed in every language under the sun, she were to offer Jacqueline
the hundred or two hundred francs she seemed constantly to need, Jacqueline
would have changed her tune about never having the time to have lunch or
tea at O's place, or would have stopped evading her caresses. But of this
O never had any proof. She had only barely mentioned it to Sir Stephen,
who was chiding her for her slowness, when René stepped in. The five
or six times that René had come by for O, when Jacqueline had happened
to be there, the three of them had gone together to the Weber bar or to
one of the English bars in the vicinity of the Madeleine; on these occasions
René would contemplate Jacqueline with precisely the same mixture
of interest, self-assurance, and arrogance with which he would gaze, at
Roissy, at the girls who were completely at his disposal. The arrogance
slid harmlessly off Jacqueline's solid, gleaming armor, and Jacqueline was
not even aware of it. By a curious contradiction, O was disturbed by it,
judging an attitude which she considered quite natural and normal for herself,
insulting for Jacqueline. Was she taking up cudgels in defense of Jacqueline,
or was it merely that she wanted her all to herself? She would have been
hard put to answer that question, all the more so because she did not have
her all to herself - at least not yet. But if she finally did succeed, she
had to admit it was thanks to René. On three occasions, upon leaving
the bar where they had given Jacqueline considerably more whisky than she
should have drunk - her cheeks were flushed and shining, her eyes hard -
he had driven her home before taking O to Sir Stephen's.

Jacqueline lived in one of those lugubrious Passy lodging houses into which
hordes of White Russians had piled immediately following the Revolution,
and from which they had never moved. The entrance hall was painted in imitation
oak, and on the stairway the spaces between the banisters were covered with
dust, and the green carpeting had been worn down till it was threadbare
in many places. Each time René wanted to come in - and to date he
had never got beyond the front door - Jacqueline would jump out of the car,
cry "not tonight" or "thanks so much," and slam the
car door behind her as though she had suddenly been burned by some tongue
of flame. And it was true, O would say to herself, that she was being pursued
by fire. It was admirable that Jacqueline had sensed it, even though she
had no concrete evidence of it as yet. At least she realized that she had
to be on her guard with René, whose detachment did not seem to affect
her in the slightest. (Or did it? And as far as seeming unaffected, two
could play at that game, and René was a worthy opponent for her).

The only time that Jacqueline let O come into the house and follow her
up to her room, O had understood why she had so adamantly refused René
permission to set foot in the house. What would have happened to her prestige,
her black-and-white legend on the slick pages of the posh fashion magazines,
if someone other than a woman like herself had seen the sordid lair from
which the glorious creature issued forth every day? The bed was never made,
at most the bedclothes were more or less pulled up, and the sheet which
was visible was dirty and greasy, for Jacqueline never went to bed without
massaging her face with cold cream, and she fell asleep too quickly to think
of wiping it off. Sometime in the past a curtain had apparently partitioned
off the toilet from the room: all that remained on the triangular shaped
curtain rod were two rings and a few shreds of cloth. The color was faded
from everything: from the rug, from the wallpaper whose pink and gray flowers
were crawling upward like vegetation gone wild and become petrified on the
imitation white trellis. One would have had to throw everything out and
start again from scratch: scrape off the wallpaper, throw out the rug, sand
the floors. But without waiting for that, one could in any case have cleaned
off the dirt that, like so many strata, ringed the enamel of the basin,
immediately wiped off and put into some kind of order the bottles of make-up
remover and the jars of cream, cleaned up the powder box, wiped off the
dressing table, thrown out the dirty cotton, opened the windows. But, straight
and cool and clean and smelling of eau de Cologne and wild flowers, dirt-proof
and impeccable, Jacqueline could not have cared less about her filthy room.
What she did care about, however, what caused her no end of concern, was
her family.

It was because of her hovel, which O was frank enough to have mentioned
to René, that René made a proposal which was to alter their
lives, but it was because of her family that Jacqueline accepted. René's
suggestion was that Jacqueline should come and live with O. "Family"
was a gross misunderstatement: it was a clan, or rather a horde. Grandmother,
mother, aunt, and even a maid - four women ranging in age from fifty to
seventy, strident, heavily made up, smothered beneath onyx and their black
silks, sobbing and wailing at four in the morning in the faint red light
of the icons, with the cigarette smoke swirling thickly about them, four
women drowning in the clicking of the tea glasses and the harsh hissing
of a language Jacqueline would gladly have given half her life to forget
- she was going out of her mind having to submit to their orders, to listen
to them, merely having to see them. Whenever she saw her mother lifting
a piece of sugar to her mouth before drinking her tea, Jacqueline would
set down her own glass and retreat to her dry and dusty pigsty, leaving
all three of them behind, her grandmother, her mother, and her mother's
sister, with their hair dyed black, their closely knit eyebrows, and their
wide, doelike, disapproving eyes - there in her mother's room which doubled
as a living room, there where, besides, the fourth female, the maid, ended
by resembling them. She fled, banging the doors behind her, and they called
after her: "Choura, Choura, little dove," just as in the novels
of Tolstoy, for her name was not Jacqueline. Jacqueline was her professional
name, a name chosen to forget her real name, and with it this sordid but
tender gynaeceum, and to set herself up in the French sun, in a solid world
where there are men who do marry you and not disappear, as had the father
she had never known, into the vast arctic wastes from which he had never
returned. She took after him completely, she used to tell herself with a
mixture of anger and delight, she had his hair and high cheekbones, his
complexion and his slanting eyes. All she was grateful for to her mother
was having given her this blond devil as a father, this demon whom the snows
had reclaimed as the earth reclaims other men. What she resented was that
her mother had forgotten him quickly enough to have given birth one fine
day to a dark-complexioned little girl the issue of a short-lived liaison,
her half-sister by an unknown father, whose name was Natalie. Now fifteen,
Natalie only saw them during vacation. Her father, never. But he provided
for Natalie's room and board in a lycée not far from Paris,
and gave her mother a monthly stipend on which the three women and the maid
- and even Jacqueline till now - had subsisted, albeit poorly, in an idleness
which to them was paradise. Whatever remained from Jacqueline's earnings
as a model, after she had bought her cosmetics and lingerie, and her shoes
and dresses - all of which came from the top fashion houses and were, even
after the discount she received as a model, frightfully expensive - was
swallowed by the gaping maw of the family purse and disappeared, God only
knows where.

Obviously, Jacqueline could have chosen to have a lover to support her,
and she had not lacked the opportunity. She had in fact had a lover or two,
less because she liked them - not that she actually disliked them - than
because she wanted to prove to herself that she was capable of provoking
desire and inflaming a man to the point of love. The only one of the two
- the second - who had been wealthy and made her a present of a very lovely
pearl with a slight pink tint which she wore on her left hand, but she had
refused to live with him, and since he had refused to marry her, she had
left him, with no great regrets, merely relieved that she was not pregnant
(she had thought she was, for several days had lived in a state of dread
at the idea). No, to live with a lover was lose face, to forsake one's chances
for the future, it was to do what her mother had done with Natalie's father,
and that was out of the question.

With O, however, it was quite another matter. A polite fiction made it
possible to pretend that Jacqueline was simply moving in with a girl friend,
with whom she was going to share all costs. O would be serving a dual purpose,
both playing the role of the lover who supports, or helps to support, the
girl he loves, and also the theoretically opposite role of providing a moral
guarantee. René's presence was not official enough, really, to compromise
the fiction. But who can say whether, behind Jacqueline's decision, that
very presence might not have been the real motivation for her acceptance?
The fact remained that it was left up to O, and to O alone, to present the
matter to Jacqueline's mother. Never had O been more keenly aware of playing
the role of traitor, of spy, never had she felt so keenly she was the envoy
of some criminal organization as when she found herself in the presence
of that woman, who thanked her for befriending her daughter. And at the
same time, deep in her heart O was repudiating her mission and the reasons
which had brought her there. Yes, Jacqueline would move in with her, but
never, never would O acquiesce so completely to Sir Stephen as to deliver
her into his hands. And yet! ... For no sooner had she moved into O's apartment,
where she was assigned, at René's request, the bedroom he sometimes
pretended to occupy (pretended, given that he always slept in O's big bed),
than O, contrary to all expectations, was amazed to find herself obsessed
with the burning desire to have Jacqueline at any price, even if attaining
her goal meant handing her over to Sir Stephen. After all, she rationalized
to herself, Jacqueline's beauty is quite sufficient protection for her,
and besides, why should I get involved in it anyway? And what if she were
to be reduced to what I have been reduced to, is that really so terrible?
- scarcely admitting, and yet so overwhelmed to imagine, how sweet it would
be to see Jacqueline naked and defenseless beside her, and like her.

The week Jacqueline moved in, her mother having given her full consent,
René proved to be exceedingly zealous, inviting them every other
day to dinner and taking them to the movies which, curiously enough, he
chose from among the detective pictures playing, tales of drug traffic and
white slavery. He would sit down between them, gently hold hands with them
both and not utter a word. But whenever there was a scene of violence, O
would see him studying Jacqueline's face for the slightest trace of emotion.
All you could see on it was a hint of disgust, revealed by the slight downward
pout at the corners of her mouth.

Afterward he would drive them home in his convertible, with the top down,
and in the open car with the windows rolled down, the speed and the night
wind flattened Jacqueline's generous head of blond hair against her cheeks
and narrow forehead, and even blew it into her eyes. She would toss her
head to smooth her hair back into place and would run her hand through it
the way boys do.

Once she had accepted the fact that she was living with O and that O was
René's mistress, she consequently seemed to find René's little
familiarities quite natural. It did not bother her in the least to have
René come into her room under the pretense of looking for some piece
of paper he had left there, and O knew that it was a pretense, for she had
personally emptied the drawers of the big Dutch writing desk, with its elaborate
pattern of inlay and its leather-lined leaf, which was always open, a desk
so utterly unlike René. Why did he have it? Who had he gotten it
from? Its weighty elegance, its light-colored woods were the only touch
of wealth in the somewhat dark room which faced north and overlooked the
courtyard and the steel gray of its walls and the cold, highly waxed surface
of the floor provided a sharp contract with the cheerful rooms which faced
the river. Well, there could be a virtue in that: Jacqueline would not be
happy there. It would make it all the easier for her to agree to share the
two front rooms with O, to sleep with O, as on the first day she had agreed
to share the bathroom and kitchen, the cosmetics, the perfumes, the meals.
In this, O was mistaken. Jacqueline was profoundly and passionately attached
to anything that belonged to her - to her pink pearl, for instance - and
completely indifferent to anything that was not hers. Had she lived in a
palace, it would have interested her only if someone had told her: the palace
is yours, and then proved it by giving her a notarized deed. She could not
have cared less whether the gray room was pleasant or not, and it was not
to get away from it that she climbed into O's bed. Nor was it to show her
gratitude to O, for she in fact did not feel it, though O ascribed the feeling
to her and was delighted to abuse it, or think she was abusing it. Jacqueline
enjoyed pleasure, and found it both expedient and pleasant to receive it
from a woman, in whose hands she was running no risk whatever.

Five days after she had unpacked her suitcases, whose contents O had helped
her sort out and put away, when for the third time René had brought
them home about ten o'clock after having dined with them, and had then left
(as he had both other times), she simply appeared, naked and still wet from
her bath, in O's doorway and said to O:

"You're sure he's not coming back?" and without even waiting
for her answer, she slipped into the big bed. She allowed herself to be
kissed and caressed, her eyes closed, not responding by a single caress;
at first she moaned faintly, hardly more than a whimper, then louder, still
louder, until finally she cried out. She fell asleep sprawled across the
bed, her knees apart but her legs flat again on the bed, the upper part
of her body slightly turned on one side, her hands open, her body bathed
in the bright light of the pink lamp. Between her breasts a trace of sweat
glistened. O covered her and turned out the light. When, two hours later,
she took her again, in the dark, Jacqueline did not resist but murmured:

"Don't wear me out completely, I have to get up early tomorrow."

It was at this time that Jacqueline, in addition to her intermittent assignments
as a model, began to engage in a more absorbing but equally unpredictable
career: she was signed up to play bit parts in the movies. It was hard to
tell whether she was proud of this or not, whether or not she considered
this the first step in a career which might lead to her becoming famous.
In the morning she would drag herself out of bed more in anger than with
any show of enthusiasm, would take her shower, quickly make herself up,
for breakfast would accept only the large cup of black coffee that O barely
had time to make for her, and would let O kiss the tips of her fingers,
responding with no more than a mechanical smile and an expression full of
malice: O was soft and warm in her white vicuña dressing gown, her
hair combed, her face washed, looking for all the world like someone who
plans on going back to bed. And yet such was not the case. O had not yet
found the courage to explain why to Jacqueline. The truth of the matter
was that every day, when Jacqueline left for the film studio at Boulogne
where her picture was being shot, at the same time as the children left
for school and the white-collar workers for their offices, O, who in the
past had indeed whiled away the morning in her apartment, also got dressed.

"I'm sending you my car," Sir Stephen had said, "to drive
Jacqueline to Boulogne, then it will come back to pick you up."

Thus O found herself headed for Sir Stephen's place every morning when
the sun along the way was still striking the eastern faces; the other walls
were still cool in the shade, but in the gardens the shadows were already
growing shorter.

At the rue de Poitiers, the housework was still not finished. Norah, the
mulatto maid, would take O into the small bedroom where, the first evening,
Sir Stephen had left her alone to sleep and cry, wait till O had put her
gloves, her bag, and her clothes on the bed, and then she would take them
and put them away, in O's presence, in a closet to which she alone had the
key. Then, having given O the patent-leather high-heeled mules which made
a sharp clicking sound as she walked, Norah would precede her, opening the
doors as they went, till they reached Sir Stephen's study, when she would
stand aside to let O pass.

O never got used to these preparations, and stripping in front of this
patient old woman, who never said a word to her and scarcely looked at her,
seemed to her as dangerous and formidable as being naked at Roissy in the
presence of the valets there. On felt slippers, the old lady slipped silently
by like a nun. As she followed her, O could not take her eyes off the twin
points of her Madras kerchief and, every time she opened a door, off her
thin, swarthy hand on the porcelain handle, a hand that seemed as hard as
wood.

At the same time, by a feeling diametrically opposed to the terror she
inspired in her - a contradiction O was unable to explain - O experienced
a kind of pride that this servant of Sir Stephen (and just what was her
relation to Sir Stephen, and why had he entrusted her with this task as
costume and make-up assistant for which she assumed so poorly suited?) was
a witness to the fact that she too - like so many others, perhaps, whom
she had guided in the same way, and why should she think otherwise? - was
worthy of being used by Sir Stephen. For perhaps Sir Stephen did love her,
without a doubt he did, and O sensed that the time was not far off when
he would no longer be content to let her suspect it but would declare it
to her - but to the very degree that his love and desire for her were increasing,
he was becoming more completely, more minutely, and more deliberately exacting
with her. Thus retained by his side for whole mornings, during which he
sometimes scarcely touched her, waiting only to be caressed by her, she
did whatever he wanted of her with a sentiment that must be qualified as
gratitude, which was all the greater whenever his request took the form
of a command. Each surrender was for her the pledge that another surrender
would be demanded of her, and she acquitted herself of each as though of
a duty performed; it was odd that she would have been completely satisfied
by it, and yet she was.

Sir Stephen's office, situated directly above the yellow and gray drawing
room where he held sway in the evening, was smaller and had a lower ceiling.
It contained neither settee nor sofa, only two regency armchairs upholstered
in a tapestry with a floral pattern. O sat in one occasionally, but Sir
Stephen generally preferred to keep her near at hand, at arm's length, and
while he was busy with other things, to none the less have her seated on
his desk, to his left. The desk was set at right angles to the wall, which
allowed O to lean back against the shelves which contained some dictionaries
and leather-bound phone books. The telephone was snug against her left thigh,
and every time the phone rang she jumped it. It was she who picked up the
receiver and answered, saying: "May I ask who's calling?" then
either repeating the name out loud and passing the receiver to Sir Stephen,
or, if he signaled to her, making some excuse for him. Whenever had a visitor,
old Norah would announce him, Sir Stephen would have him wait long enough
for Norah to conduct O back to the room where she had undressed and where,
after Sir Stephen's visitor had left, she would come to fetch her again
when Sir Stephen rang for her.

Since Norah entered and left the study several times each morning, either
to bring Sir Stephen his coffee or to bring in the mail, to open or draw
the blinds or to empty the ashtrays, and since she alone had the right to
enter and had been expressly instructed never to knock, and since, finally,
she always waited in silence whenever she had something to say, until Sir
Stephen spoke to her to ask her what it was she wanted, it so happened that
on one occasion when Norah came into the room O was bent over the desk with
her rear exposed, her head and arms against the leather top, waiting for
Sir Stephen to impale her. She raised her head. If Norah had not glanced
at her, and she invariably never did, that would have been the only movement
O would have made. But this time it was obvious that Norah was trying to
catch O's eye. Those black, beady eyes fastened on her own - and it was
impossible for O to tell whether they bespoke indifference or not - those
eyes set in a deeply furrowed, impassive face so bothered O that she made
a movement to try and get away from Sir Stephen. He gathered what it was
all about, and with one hand pinned her waist to the table, while prying
her open with the other. She who was constantly striving to cooperate and
do her best was now, quite involuntarily, tense and contracted, and Sir
Stephen was obliged to force his way. Even when he had done so, she felt
that the ring of her buttocks was tightening around him, and he had trouble
forcing himself all the way into her. He withdrew only when he was certain
he could come and go with ease. Then as he was on the point of taking her
again, he told Norah to wait, and said that she could help O get dressed
when he had finished with her. And yet, before he dismissed her, he kissed
O tenderly on the mouth. It was that kiss which, several days later, gave
her the courage to tell him that Norah frightened her.

"I should hope so," he retorted. "And when you wear my mark
and my irons, as I trust you soon will - if you will consent to it - you'll
have much more reason to be afraid of her."

"That's completely up to Anne-Marie, to whom in fact I've promised
to show you. We're going to pay her a visit after lunch. I trust you don't
mind? She's a friend of mine, and you may have noted that, till now, I've
refrained from ever introducing you to my friends. When Anne-Marie is finished
with you, I'll give you genuine reasons for being afraid of Norah."

O did not dare to pursue the matter any further. This Anne-Marie whom they
had threatened her with intrigued her more than Norah. Sir Stephen had already
mentioned her when they had lunched together at Saint-Cloud. And it was
quite true that O knew none of Sir Stephen's friends, nor any of his acquaintances.
In short, she was living in Paris, locked in her secret as though she had
been locked in a brothel; the only persons who had the key to her secret,
René and Sir Stephen, at the same time had the only key to her body.
She could not help thinking that the expression "open oneself to someone,"
which meant to give oneself, for her had only this meaning, for she was
in fact opening every part of her body which was capable of being opened.
It also seemed to her that this was her raison d'être and that
Sir Stephen, like René, intended it should be, since whenever he
spoke of his friends as he had done at Saint-Cloud, it was to tell her that
those to whom he might introduce her would, needless to say, be free to
dispose of her however they wished, if indeed they did. But in trying to
visualize Anne-Marie and imagine what it might be that Sir Stephen expected
from Anne-Marie as far as she, O, was concerned, O was completely at sea,
and not even her experience at Roissy was of any help to her. Sir Stephen
had also mentioned that he wanted to see her caress another woman: could
that be it? (But he had specified that he was referring to Jacqueline....)
No, it wasn't that. "To show you," he had just said. Indeed. But
after she left Anne-Marie, O knew no more than before.

Anne-Marie lived not far from the Observatoire in Paris, in an apartment
flanked by a kind of large studio, on the top floor of a new building overlooking
the treetops. She was a slender woman, the same age more or less as Sir
Stephen, and her black hair was streaked with gray. Her eyes were such a
deep blue they looked black. She offered O and Sir Stephen some coffee,
a very strong bitter coffee which she served steaming hot in tiny cups,
and which reassured O. When she had finished her coffee and got up from
her chair to put down her empty cup on a coffee table, Anne-Marie seized
her by the wrist and, turning to Sir Stephen, said:

"May I?"

"Please do," Sir Stephen said.

Then Anne-Marie, who tell then had neither spoken to nor smiled at O, even
to greet her or to acknowledge Sir Stephen's introduction, said to her softly,
with a smile so tender one would have thought she were giving her a present:

"Come, my child, and let me see your belly and backside, but better
yet, why don't you take off all your clothes."

While O obeyed, she lighted a cigarette. Sir Stephen had not taken his
eyes off O. They left her standing there for perhaps five minutes. There
was no mirror in the room, but O caught a vague reflection of herself in
the black-lacquer surface of a screen.

"Take off your stockings too," Anne-Marie said suddenly. "You
see," she went on, "you shouldn't wear garters, you'll ruin your
thighs." And with the tip of her finger she pointed to the spot just
above O's knees where O rolled down her stockings around a wide elastic
garter. There was in fact a faint mark on her leg.

"Who told you to do that?"

Before O had a chance to reply, Sir Stephen said:

"The boy who gave her to me, you know him, René." And
he added: "But I'm sure he'll come around to your opinion."

"I'm glad to hear it," said Anne-Marie. "I'm going to give
you some long, dark stockings, O, and a corset to hold them up. But it will
be a whalebone corset, one that will be snug at the waist."

When Anne-Marie had run a young blonde, silent girl had brought in some
very sheer, black stockings and a tight-fitting corset of black nylon taffeta,
reinforced and sustained by wide, close-set stays which curved in at the
lower belly and above the hips. O, who was still standing, shifting her
weight from one foot to the other, slipped on the stockings, which came
to the top of her thighs. The young blonde helped her into the corset, which
had a row of buckles along one of the busks on one side near the back. Like
the bodices at Roissy, this one could be laced up as tightly or as loosely
as desired, the laces being at the back. O fastened her stockings to the
four garter-belt snaps in front and on the sides, then the girl set about
lacing her up as tight as she could. O felt her waist and belly being pressed
inward by the pressure of the stays, that in front descended almost to the
pubis, which they left free, as they did her hips. The corset was shorter
behind and left her rear completely free.

"She'll be much improved," Anne-Marie said, speaking to Sir Stephen,
"when her waist is a fraction of its present size. And what's more,
if you're too pressed for time to have her undress, you'll see that the
corset is no inconvenience. Now then, O, step over this way."

The girl left: O went over to Anne-Marie, who was sitting in a low chair,
a small easy chair upholstered in bright red velvet. Anne-Marie ran her
hand lightly over her buttocks and then, toppling her over on an ottoman
similar to the red velvet chair and ordering her not to move, seized both
her nether lips.

This is how they lift the fish at the market, O was thinking, by the gills,
and how they pry open the mouths of horses. She also recalled that the valet
Pierre, during her first evening at Roissy, had done the same to her after
having fastened her in chains. After all, she was no longer mistress of
her own fate, and that part of her of which she was least in control was
most assuredly that half of her body which could, so to speak, be put to
use independently of the rest. Why, each time that she realized this, as
she - surprised was not really the right word - once again persuaded, why
was she paralyzed each time by the same feeling of profound distress, a
sentiment which tended to deliver her not so much into the hands of the
person she was with as into the hands of him who had turned her over to
alien hands, a sentiment which drew her closer to René when others
were possessing her and which, here, was tending to draw her closer to whom?
To René or to Sir Stephen? She no longer knew.... But that was because
she did not want to know, for it was clear that she had belonged to Sir
Stephen now for ... how long had it been? ...

Anne-Marie had her stand up and put her clothes back on.

"You can bring her to me whenever you like," she said to Sir
Stephen. "I'll be at Samois (Samois... O had expected: Roissy. But
if it did not mean Roissy; then what did it mean?) in two days time. That
will be fine." (What would be fine?)

In the car which was driving back home, Sir Stephen having remained behind
at Anne-Marie's she remembered the statue she had seen as a child in the
Luxembourg Gardens: a woman whose waist had been similarly constricted and
seemed so slim between her full breasts and plump behind - she was leaning
over limpid water, a spring which, like her, was carefully sculptured in
marble, looking at her reflection - so slim and frail that she had been
afraid the marble waist would snap. But if that was what Sir Stephen wanted...

As for Jacqueline, she could handle her easily enough merely by telling
her the corset was one of René's whims. Which brought O back to a
train of thought she had been trying to avoid whenever it occurred to her,
one which surprised her above all not to find more painful: why, since Jacqueline
had moved in with her, had he made an effort not so much to leave her alone
with Jacqueline, which she could understand, but to avoid being alone with
O any more? July was fast approaching, and he would be going away and would
not be coming to visit her at this Anne-Marie's where Sir Stephen was sending
her; must she therefore resign herself to the fact that the only times she
would see him would be those evenings when he was in the mood to invite
Jacqueline and her, or - and she didn't know which of the two possibilities
upset her most (since between them, at this point, there was something basically
false, due to the fact that their relationship was so circumscribed) - on
those occasional mornings when she was at Sir Stephen's and Norah ushered
René in, after having announced his arrival? Sir Stephen always received
him, invariably René kissed O, caressed the tips of her breasts,
coordinated his plans with Sir Stephen for the following day - plans which
never included O - and left. Had he given her to Sir Stephen so completely
that he had ceased to love her? The thought threw O into such a state of
panic that, mechanically, she got out of Sir Stephen's car in front of her
house, instead of telling the chauffeur to wait, and after it had pulled
away she had to dash off in search of a taxi. Taxis are few and far between
on the quai de Bethune. O had to run all the way to the boulevard Saint-Germain,
and still she had to wait. She was all out of breath, and in a sweat, because
her corset made it hard for her to breathe, when a taxi finally slowed down
at the corner of the rue Cardinal-Lemoine. She signaled to it, gave the
driver the address of René's office, got in without knowing whether
René would be there, and if he was, whether he would see her; it
was the first time she had gone to his office.

She was not surprised by the impressive building on a side street just
off the Champs-Elysées, or by the American-style offices, but what
did disconcert her was René's attitude, although he did receive her
immediately. Not that he was aggressive or full of reproaches. She would
have preferred reproaches, for he had never given her permission to come
and disturb him at his office, and it was possible that she was creating
a considerable disturbance for him. He dismissed his secretary, told her
that he did not want to see anyone, and asked her to hold all calls. Then
he asked O what was the matter.

"I was afraid you didn't love me any longer," O said.

He laughed. "All of a sudden, just like that?"

"Yes, in the car coming back from..."

"Coming back from where?"

O remained silent.

René laughed again:

"But I know where you were, silly. Coming back from Anne-Marie's.
And in ten days you're going to Samois. Sir Stephen just talked to me on
the phone."

René was seated in the only comfortable chain in the office, which
was facing the table, and O had buried herself in his arms.

"They can do whatever they want with me, I don't care," she murmured.
"But tell me you still love me."

"Of course I love you, darling," René said, "but
I want you to obey me, and I'm afraid you're not doing a very good job of
it. Did you tell Jacqueline that you belonged to Sir Stephen, did you talk
to her about Roissy?"

O assured him that she had not. Jacqueline acquiesced to her caresses,
but the day she should learn that O...

René stopped her from completing her sentence, lifted her up and
laid her down in the chair where he had just been sitting, and bunched up
her skirt.

"Ah ha, so you have your corset," he said. "It's true that
you'll be much more attractive when you have a smaller waistline."

Then he took her, and it seemed to O that it had been so long since he
had that, subconsciously, she realized she had begun to doubt whether he
really desired her any longer, and in his act she saw proof of love.

"You know," he said afterward, "you're foolish not to talk
to Jacqueline. We absolutely need her at Roissy, and the simplest way of
getting her there would be through you. Besides, when you come back from
Anne-Marie's there won't be any way of concealing your true conditioning
any longer."

O wanted to know why.

"You'll see," René went on. "You still have five
days, and only five days, because Sir Stephen intends to start whipping
you again daily, five days before he sends you to Anne-Marie's and there
will be no way for you to hide the marks. How will you ever explain them
to Jacqueline?"

O did not reply. What René did not know was that Jacqueline was
completely egotistical as far as O was concerned, being interested in her
solely because of O's manifest, and passionate, interest in her, and she
never looked at O. If O were covered with welts from the floggings, all
she would have to do would be to take care not to bathe in Jacqueline's
presence, and to wear a nightgown. Jacqueline would never notice a thing.
She had never noticed that O did not wear panties, and there was no danger
she would notice anything else: the fact was that O did not interest her.

"Listen to me," René went on, "there's one thing
anyway I want you to tell her, and tell her right away, and that is that
I'm in love with her."

"Is that true?" O said.

"I want her," René said, "and since you can't - or
won't - do anything about it, I'll take charge of the matter myself and
do what has to be done."

"You'll never get her to agree to go to Roissy," O said.

"I won't? In that case," René retorted, "we'll force
her to."

That night, after dark, when Jacqueline was in bed and O had pulled the
covers back to gaze at her in the light of the lamp, after having said to
her: "René's in love with you, you know" - for she had
delivered the message and delivered it without delay - O, who a month before
had been horrified at the idea of seeing this delicate wisp of a body scored
by the lash, these narrow loins quartered, the pure mouth screaming, and
the far down on her cheeks streaked with tear, O now repeated to herself
René's final words and was happy.

With Jacqueline gone and not due back until beginning of August, if they
had finished shooting the film she was making, there was nothing further
to keep O in Paris. July was around the corner, all the gardens in Paris
were bursting with crimson geraniums, at noon all the shutters in town were
closed, and René was complaining that he would have to make a trip
to Scotland. For a moment O was hoping that he would take her along. But
apart from the fact that he never took her anywhere to see his family, she
knew that he would surrender her to Sir Stephen, if he were to ask for her.

Sir Stephen announced that he would come for her the same day that René
was flying to London. She was on vacation.

Their destination was not the apartment near the Observatoire where O had
first met Anne-Marie, but a low-lying two-story house at the end of a large
garden, on the edge of the Fontanebleau Forest. Since that first day, O
had been wearing the whalebone corset that Anne-Marie had deemed so essential:
each day she had tightened it a little more, until now her waist was scarcely
larger than the circle formed by her ten fingers.; Anne-Marie ought to be
pleased.

When they arrived it was two o'clock in the afternoon, the whole house
was asleep, and the dog barked faintly when they rang the bell: a big, shaggy,
sheepdog that sniffed at O's knees beneath her skirt. Anne-Marie was sitting
under a copper beech tree on the edge of the lawn which , in one corner
of the garden, faced the windows of her bedroom. She did not get up.

"Her's O," Sir Stephen said. "You know what has to be done
with her. When will she be ready?"

Anne-Marie glanced at O. "You mean you haven't told her? All right,
I'll begin immediately. You should probably allow ten days after it's over.
I imagine you'll want to put the rings and monogram on yourself? Come back
in two weeks. The whole business should be finished in two weeks after that."

O started to ask a question.

"Just a minute, O," Anne-Marie said, "go into the front
bedroom over there, get undressed but keep your sandals on, and come back."

The room, a large white bedroom with heavy purple Jouy print drapes, was
empty. O put her bag, her gloves, and her clothes on a small chair near
a closet door. There was no mirror. She went back outside and, dazzled by
the bright sunlight, walked slowly back over in the shade of the beech tree.
Sir Stephen was still standing in front of Anne-Marie, the dog at his feet.
Anne-Marie's black hair, streaked with gray, shone as though she had used
some kind of cream on it, her blue eyes seemed black. She was dressed in
white, with a patent-leather belt around her waist, and she was wearing
patent-leather sandals which revealed the bright red nail polish on the
toenails of her bare feet, the same color polish she was wearing on her
fingernails.

"O," she said, "kneel down in front of Sir Stephen."

O obliged, her arms crossed behind her back, the tips of her breasts quivering.
The dog tensed, as though he were about to spring at her.

"Down, Turk," Anne-Marie ordered. Then: "Do you consent,
O, to bear the rings and monogram with which Sir Stephen desires you to
be marked, without knowing how they will be placed upon you?"

As Anne-Marie got up from her chaise lounge, Sir Stephen bent down and
took O's breasts in his hands. He kissed her on the mouth and murmured:

"Are you mine, O, are you really mine?" then turned and left
her, to follow Anne-Marie. The gate banged shut, Anne-Marie was coming back.
O, her legs folded beneath her, was sitting on her heels and had her arms
on her knees, like an Egyptian statue.

There were three other girls living in the house, all of whom had a bedroom
on the second floor. O was given a small bedroom on the ground floor, adjoining
Anne-Marie's. Anne-Marie called up to them to come down into the garden.
Like O, all three of them were naked. The only persons in this gynaeceum
- which was carefully concealed by the high walls and by closed shutters
over the windows which overlooked a narrow dirt road - the only persons
who wore clothes were Anne-Marie and the three servants: a cook and two
maids, all of whom were older than Anne-Marie, three severe, dour women
in their black alpaca skirts and stiffly starched aprons.

"Her name is O," said Anne-Marie, who had sat down again. "Bring
her over to me so I can get a better look at her." Two of the girls
helped O to her feet: they were both brunettes, their hair as dark as their
fleece below, and the nipples of their breasts were large and dark, almost
purple. The other girl was a short, plump redhead, and the chalky skin of
her bosom was crisscrossed by a terrifying network of green veins. The two
girls pushed O till she was right next to Anne-Marie, who pointed to the
three black stripes that showed on the front of her thighs and were repeated
on her buttocks.

"Who whipped you?" she asked. "Sir Stephen?"

"Yes," O said.

"When? And with what?"

"Three days ago, with a riding crop."

"Starting tomorrow, and for a month thereafter, you will not be whipped.
But today you will, to mark your arrival, as soon as I've had a chance to
examine you. Has Sir Stephen ever whipped you on the inside of your thighs,
with your legs spread wide? No? It's true, men don't know how to. Well,
we'll soon see. Show me your waist. Yes, it's much better!"

Anne-Marie pressed O's waist to make it even more wasplike. Then she sent
the redhead to fetch another corset and had them put it on her. It was also
made of black nylon, but it was so stiffly whaleboned and so narrow that
it looked for all the world like an extremely wide belt. It had no garter
straps. One of the girls laced it up as tight as she could, with Anne-Marie
lending her encouragement as she pulled on the laces as hard as she could.

"This is dreadful," O said. "I don't know whether I can
bear it."

"That's the whole point," Anne-Marie said. "You're much,
much lovelier than you were, but the problem was you didn't lace it tight
enough. You're going to wear it this way every day. But tell me now, how
did Sir Stephen prefer using you? I need to know."

She had seized O's womb with her whole hand, and O could not reply. Two
of the girls were seated on the lawn, the third, one of the brunettes, was
seated on the foot of Anne-Marie's chaise lounge.

"Turn her around for me, girls, so I can see her back," Anne-Marie
said.

She was turned around and bent over, and the hands of both girls vented
her.

"Of course," Anne-Marie went on, "there was no need for
you to tell me. You'll have to be marked on the rear. Stand up. We're going
to put on your bracelets. Colette, go get the box, and we'll draw lots to
see who will whip you. Bring the tokens, Colette, then we'll go to the music
room."

Colette was the taller of the two dark-haired girls, the other's name was
Claire; the short redhead was named Yvonne. O had not noticed till now that
they were all wearing, as at Roissy, a leather collar and leather bracelets
on their wrists. They were also wearing similar bracelets around their ankles.

When Yvonne had chosen some bracelets that fit O and put them on her, Anne-Marie
handed O four tokens and asked her to give one to each of the girls, without
looking at the numbers on them. O handed out the tokens, the three girls
each looked at theirs but said nothing, waiting for Anne-Marie to speak.

"I have number two," Anne-Marie said. "Who has number one?"

Colette had number one.

"All right, take O away, she's all yours."

Colette seized O's arms and joined her hands behind her back; she fastened
the bracelets together and pushed O ahead of her. On the threshold of a
French door that opened into a small wing which formed an L with the front
of the house, Yvonne, who was leading the way, removed her sandals. The
light entering through the French door revealed a room the far end of which
formed a kind of raised rotunda; the ceiling, in the shape of a shallow
cupola, was supported by two narrow columns set about six feet apart. This
dais was about four steps high and, in the area between the columns, projected
further into the room in a gentle arc. The floor of the rotunda, like that
of the rest of the room, was covered with a red felt carpet. The walls were
white, the curtains on the windows red, and the sofas set in a semicircle
facing the rotunda were upholstered in the same red felt material as the
carpet on the floor. In the rectangular portion of the room there was a
fireplace which was wider than it was deep, and opposite the fireplace a
large console-type combination record player and radio, with shelves of
records on both sides. This was why it was called the music room, which
communicated directly with Anne-Marie's bedroom via a door near the fireplace.
The identical door on the other side of the fireplace opened into a closet.
Aside from the record player and the sofas, the room had no furniture.

While Colette had O sit down on the edge of the platform, which in this
center portion between the columns made a vertical drop to the floor - the
steps having been placed to the left and right of the columns - the two
other girls, after first having closed the venetian blinds a trifle, shut
the French door. O was surprised to note that it was a double door, and
Anne-Marie, who was laughing said:

"That's so no one can hear you scream. And the walls are lined with
cork. Don't worry, no one can hear the slightest thing that goes on in here.
Now lie down."

She took her by both shoulders and laid her back, then pulled her slightly
forward. O's hands were clutching the edge of the platform - Yvonne having
attached them to a ring set in the platform - and her buttocks were thus
suspended in mid-air. Anne-Marie made her raise her legs toward her chest,
then O suddenly felt her legs, still doubled-up above her, being pulled
taut in the same direction: straps had been fastened to her ankle bracelets
and thence to the columns on either side, while she lay thus between them
on this raised dais exposed in such a way that the only part of her which
was visible was the double cleft of her womb and her buttocks violently
quartered. Anne-Marie caressed the inside of her thighs.

"It's the most tender spot of the whole body," she said, "be
careful not to harm it. Not too hard now, Colette."

Colette was standing over her, astride her at the level of her waist, and
in the bridge formed by her dark legs, O could see the tassels of the whip
she was holding in her hand. As the first blows burned into her loins, O
moaned. Colette alternated from left to right, paused, then started again.
O struggled with all her might, she thought the straps would tear her limb
from limb. She did not want to grovel, she did not want to beg for mercy.
And yet, that was precisely what Anne-Marie intended wringing from her lips.

"Faster," she said to Colette, "and harder."

O braced herself, but it was no use. A minute later she could bear it no
more, she screamed and burst into tears, while Anne-Marie caressed her face.

"Just a second longer," she said, "and it will be over.
Only five more minutes. She can scream for five minutes. It's twenty-five
past, Colette. Stop when it's half past, when I tell you to."

But O was screaming:

"No, no, for God's sake don't!" screaming that she couldn't bear
it, no, she couldn't bear the torture another second. And yet she endured
it to the bitter end, and after Colette had left the little stage, Anne-Marie
smiled at her.

"Thank me," she said to O, and O thanked her.

She knew very well why Anne-Marie had wanted, above all else, to have her
whipped. That the female of the species was as cruel as, and more implacable
than, the male, O had never doubted for a minute. But O suspected that Anne-Marie
was less interested in making a spectacle of her power than she was in establishing
between O and herself a sense of complicity. O had never really understood,
but she had finally come to accept as an undeniable and important verity,
this constant and contradictory jumble of her emotions: she liked the idea
of torture, but when she was being tortured herself she would have betrayed
the whole world to escape it, and yet when it was over she was happy to
have gone through it, happier still if it had been especially cruel and
prolonged. Anne-Marie had been correct in her assumptions both as to O's
acquiescence and as to her revolt, and knew that her pleas for mercy were
indeed genuine. There was still a third reason for what she had done, which
she explained to O. She was bent on proving to every girl who came into
her house, and who was fated to live in a totally feminine universe, that
her condition as a woman should not be minimized or denigrated by the fact
that she was in contact only with other women, but that, on the contrary,
it should be heightened and intensified. That was why she required that
the girls be constantly naked; the way in which O was flogged, as well as
the position in which she was bound, had no other purpose. Today it was
O who would remain for the rest of the afternoon - for three more hours
- exposed on the dais, her legs raised and spread. Tomorrow it would be
Claire, or Colette, or Yvonne, whom O would contemplate in tun. It was a
technique much too slow and meticulous (as was the way the whip was wielded)
to be used at Roissy. But O would see how efficient it was. Apart from the
rings and the letters she would wear when she left, she would be returned
to Sir Stephen more open, and more profoundly enslaved, than she had ever
before thought possible.

The following morning, after breakfast, Anne-Marie told O and Yvonne to
follow her into the bedroom. From her writing desk she took a green leather
coffer which she set on the bed and proceeded to open. Both girls squatted
on their heels.

"Hasn't Yvonne said anything to you about this?" Anne-Marie asked
O.

O shook her head. What was there for Yvonne to tell her?

"And I know Sir Stephen didn't either. No matter. Anyway, here are
the rings he wants you to wear."

The rings were of stainless steel, unburnished, the same dull finish as
the gold-plated iron ring. They were oblong in shape, similar to the links
of a heavy chain, the rounded metal being approximately as thick as the
diameter of an oversized coloring pencil. Anne-Marie showed O that each
ring was composed of two U-shaped halves, one of which fitted into the other.

"This is only the test model," she said, "which can be removed
after it's been inserted. The permanent model, you see, has a spring inside,
and when you press on it, it locks into the female slot of the other half
of the ring and cannot be removed, except by filing."

Each ring was as long as two joints of the little finger and wide enough
for the same little finger to slip through it. To each ring was suspended,
like another ring, or as though to the supporting loop of an earring, a
ring which was meant to hang parallel to the plane of the ear and form its
extension, a round disk made of the same metal, whose diameter was the same
size as the ring was long. On one of its faces, a triskelion in gold inlay;
on the opposite face, nothing.

"On the blank side will be your name, your title, and Sir Stephen's
family and given names," Anne-Marie said, "with below it, a design
composed of a crossed whip and riding crop. Yvonne is wearing a disk just
like it on her necklace, but yours will be worn on your loins."

The red-haired girl rose to her feet and lay back on the bed. Anne-Marie
spread her thighs and showed O that one of the nether lobes had been neatly
pierced, half way down and close to the base. The iron ring would just fit
into it.

"In a moment I'll pierce you, O," Anne-Marie said. "It's
nothing really. What takes the longest is placing the clamps so as to be
able to suture the outer and inner layers, attach the epidermis to the inner
membrane. It's much easier to bear than the whip."

A week later, Anne-Marie removed the clamps and slipped on the test ring.
It was lighter than it looked, for it was hollow, but still O could feel
its weight. The hard metal, which was visibly piercing the flesh, looked
like an instrument of torture. What would it be like when the weight of
the second ring was added to it? This barbaric instrument would be immediately
and glaringly apparent to the most casual glance.

"Of course it will," Anne-Marie said, when O pointed this out
to her. "But aren't you by now fully aware of what Sir Stephen wants?
Anyone at Roissy or anywhere else, Sir Stephen or anyone else, even you
in front of the mirror, anyone who lifts your skirts will immediately see
his rings on your loins and, if you turn around, his monogram on your buttocks.
You may possibly file the rings off one day, but the grand on your backside
will never come off."

"I thought it was possible to have tattoos removed," Colette
said. (It was she who had tattooed, on Yvonne's white skin just above the
triangle of her belly, the initials of Yvonne's master in ornate blue letters,
like the letters you find on embroidery.)

"O will not be tattooed," replied Anne-Marie.

O looked at Anne-Marie. Colette and Yvonne were stunned, and said nothing.
Anne-Marie was fumbling for her words.

"Go ahead and say it," O said.

"My poor dear girl, I just couldn't work up the courage to tell you:
you're to be branded. Sir Stephen sent me the branding irons two days ago."

"Branded?" Yvonne cried, "with a red-hot branding iron?"

from the first day, O had shared in the life of the house. Idleness, absolute
and deliberate idleness was the order of the day, interspersed with dull
distractions. The girls were at liberty to walk in the garden, to read,
draw, play cards, play solitaire. They could sleep in their rooms or sunbathe
on the lawn. Sometimes two of them would chat, or they would talk together
in pairs for hours on end, and sometimes they would sit at Anne-Marie's
feet without uttering a word. Mealtimes were always the same, dinner was
by candlelight, tea was served in the garden, and there was something absurd
about the matter-of-fact way in which the two servants served these naked
girls seated around a festive table.

In the evening, Anne-Marie would designate one of them to sleep with her,
sometimes the same one several nights in succession. She caressed her chosen
partner and was by her caressed, generally toward dawn, and then she would
immediately fall asleep, after having sent her partner back to her own room.
The purple drapes, only half closed, tinted the dawning day mauve, and Yvonne
used to say that Anne-Marie was as beautiful and haughty in receiving pleasure
as she was unstinting in her demands. None of them had ever seen her naked.
She would pull up or open slightly her white nightgown, but would not take
it off. Neither the pleasure she may have tasted the previous night before
nor her choice of partner the previous evening had the least influence on
her decision the following afternoon, which was always determined by a drawing.
At three in the afternoon, beneath the copper beech where the garden chairs
were grouped about a round, white-marble table, Anne-Marie would bring out
the token box. Each girl would take a token. Whoever drew the lowest number
was then taken to the music room and arranged on the dais as O had been
that first day. She then had to point to (save for O, who was exempted until
her departure) Anne-Marie's right or left hand, in each of which she was
holding a white or black ball. If she chose black, she was flogged; white,
she was not. Anne-Marie never resorted to chicanery, even if chance condemned
or spared the same girl several days in a row. Thus the torture of little
Yvonne, who sobbed and cried out for her lover, was repeated four days running.
Her thighs, like her breasts crisscrossed with a green network of veins,
spread to reveal a pink flesh which was pierced by the thick iron ring,
which had finally been inserted, and the spectacle was all the more striking
because Yvonne was completely shaved.

"But why?" O wanted to know, "and why the ring if you are
already wearing a disk on your collar?"

"He says I'm more naked when I'm shaved. The ring, I think the ring
is to fasten me with."

Yvonne's green eyes and her tiny triangular face reminded O of Jacqueline
every time she looked at her. What if Jacqueline were to go to Roissy? Sooner
or later, Jacqueline would end up here, would here be strapped on her back
on this platform.

"I won't," O would say, "I don't want to and I won't lift
a finger to get her there. As it is, I've already said too much. Jacqueline's
not the sort to be flogged and marked."

But how admirably suited to blows and irons was little Yvonne how lovely
it was to hear her moans and sighs, how lovely too to witness her body soaked
with perspiration, and what a pleasure to wrest the moans and the sweat
from her. For on two occasions Anne-Marie had handed O the thonged whip
- both times the victim had been Yvonne - and told her to use it. The first
time, for the first minute, she had hesitated, and at Yvonne's first scream,
O had recoiled and cringed, but as soon as she had started in again and
Yvonne's cries had echoed anew, she had been overwhelmed with a terrible
feeling of pleasure, a feeling so intense that she had caught herself laughing
in spite of herself, and she had found it almost impossible to restrain
herself from striking Yvonne as hard as she could. Afterward she had remained
next to Yvonne throughout the entire period of time she was kept tied up,
embracing her from time to time. In some ways, she probably resembled Yvonne.
At least one was led to suspect as much by the way Anne-Marie felt about
them both. Was it O's silence, her meekness that endeared her to Anne-Marie?
Scarcely had O's wounds healed than Anne-Marie remarked:

"How I regret not to be able to whip you!... When you come back...
But let's say no more about it. In any event, I'm going to open you every
day."

And, daily, when the girl who was in the music room had been untied, O
would replace her until the bell rang for dinner. And Anne-Marie was right:
it was true that during those two hours all she could think of was the fact
that she was opened, and of the ring, hanging heavily from her (after one
had been placed there) which, after they had inserted the second ring, weighed
even more. She could think of nothing save her enslaved condition, and of
the marks that went with it.

One evening Claire had come in with Colette from the garden, come over
to O and examined both sides of the rings.

"When you went to Roissy," she said, "was it Anne-Marie
who brought you there?"

"No," O said.

"It was Anne-Marie who brought me, two years ago. I'm going back there
day after tomorrow."

The short summer night waxed slowly brighter until, toward four o'clock,
daylight drowned the last stars. O, who was sleeping with her legs together,
was awakened by Anne-Marie's hands probing between her thighs. But all Anne-Marie
wanted was to awaken O, to have O caress her. Her eyes were shining in the
half light, and her black hair, with the streaks of gray interspersed, was
pushed up behind her on the pillow: only slightly curly, and cut quite short,
it made her look like some mighty nobleman in exile, like some brave libertine.
With her lips, O brushed the hard tips of her breasts, and her hand ran
lightly over the valley of her belly. Anne-Marie was quick to yield - but
not to O. The pleasure to which she opened her eyes wide, staring at the
growing daylight, was an anonymous, impersonal pleasure of which O was merely
the instrument. It made no difference whatever to Anne-Marie that O admired
her face, smooth and glowing with renewed youth, her lovely panting lips,
nor did she care whether O heard her moan when her lips and teeth seized
the crest of flesh hidden in the furrow of her belly. She merely seized
O by the hair to press her more closely to her, and only let her go in order
to say to her:

"Again, do it again."

O had loved Jacqueline in the same way, had held her completely abandoned
in her arms. She had possessed her; or at least she so thought. But the
similarity of gestures meant nothing. O did not possess Anne-Marie. No one
possessed Anne-Marie. Anne-Marie demanded caresses without worrying about
what the person providing them might feel, and she surrendered herself with
an arrogant liberty. Yet she was all kindness and gentleness with O, kissed
her on the mouth and kissed her breasts, and held her close against her
for an hour before sending her back to her own room. She had removed her
irons.

"These are your final hours here," she said, "you can sleep
without the irons. The ones we'll put on you in a little while you'll never
be able to take off."

She had run her hand softly, and at great length, over O's rear, then had
taken her into the room where she, Anne-Marie, dressed, the only room in
the house where there was a three-sided mirror. She had opened the mirror
so that O could see herself.

"This is the last time you'll see yourself intact," she said.
"Here, on this smooth rounded area is where Sir Stephen's initials
will be branded, on either side of the cleft in your behind. The day before
you leave I'll bring you back here for another look at yourself. You won't
recognize yourself. But Sir Stephen is right. Now go and get some sleep,
O."

But O was too worried and upset to sleep, and when at ten the next morning
Yvonne came to fetch her, O was trembling so that she had to help her bathe,
arrange her hair, and put on her lipstick. She had heard the garden gate
open; Sir Stephen was there.

"Come along now, O," Yvonne said, "he's waiting for you."

The sun was already high in the sky, not a breath of air was stirring in
the leave of the beech tree, which looked as though it were made out of
copper. The dog, overcome by the heat, was lying at the foot of the tree,
and since the sun had not yet disappeared behind the main mass of foliage,
its rays shot through the end of the only branch which, at this hour, cast
a shadow on the table: the marble top was resplendent with bright, warm
spots of light.

"Here she is," said Anne-Marie, when Yvonne had brought O before
them, "the rings can be put on whenever you like, she's been pierced."

Without replying, Sir Stephen took O in his arms, kissed her on the mouth
and, lifting her completely off her feet, lay her down on the table and
bent over her. Then he kissed her again, caressed her eyebrows and her hair
and, straightening up, said to Anne-Marie:

"Right now, if it's all right with you."

Anne-Marie took the leather coffer which she had brought out with her and
set down on a chair, and handed Sir Stephen the rings, which were unhooked,
and on which were inscribed the names of O and Sir Stephen.

"Any time," Sir Stephen said.

Yvonne lifted O's knees, and O felt the cold metal as Anne-Marie slipped
it into place. As she was slipping the second half of the ring into the
first, she was careful to see that the side inlaid with gold was against
her thigh, and the side which bore the inscription facing inward. But the
spring was so tight that the prongs would not go in all the way. They had
to send Yvonne to fetch the hammer. Then they made O sit up and lean over,
with her legs spread, on the edge of the marble slab, which served as an
anvil first for the one, then the other of the two links of the chain, while
they hit the other end of the hammer to drive the prongs home. Sir Stephen
looked on in silence. When it was over, he thanked Anne-Marie and helped
O to her feet. It was then she realized that these new irons were much heavier
than the ones she had been wearing temporarily for the past few days. But
these were permanent.

"And now your monogram, right?" Anne-Marie said to Sir Stephen.

Sir Stephen nodded assent, and held O by the waist, for she was stumbling
and looked as though she might fall. She was not wearing her black corset,
but it had so molded her into the desired shape that she looked as though
she might break, so slim was her waistline now. And, as a result, her hips
and breasts seemed fuller.

In the music room, into which Sir Stephen carried rather than led O, Colette
and Claire were seated at the foot of the stage. When the others came in,
they both got to their feet. On the stage was a big, round single-burner
stove. Anne-Marie took the straps from the closet and had them tie O tightly
around the waist and knees, her belly hard against one of the columns. They
also bound her hands and feet. Consumed by fear and terror, O felt one of
Anne-Marie's hands on her buttocks, indicating the exact spot for the irons,
she heard the hiss of a flame and, in total silence, heard the windows being
closed. She could not have turned her head and looked, but she did not have
the strength to. One single, frightful stab of pain coursed through her,
made her go rigid in the bonds and wrenched a scream from her lips, and
she never knew who it was who had, with both branding irons at once, seared
the flesh of her buttocks, nor whose voice had counted slowly up to five,
nor whose hand had given the signal to withdraw the irons.

When they unfastened her, she collapsed into Anne-Marie's arms and had
time, before everything turned black around her and she completely lost
consciousness, to catch a glimpse, between two waves of darkness, of Sir
Stephen's ghastly pale face.

Ten days before the end of July, Sir Stephen drove O back to Paris. The
irons attached to the left lobe of her belly cleft, proclaiming in bold
letters that she was Sir Stephen's personal property, came about a third
of the way down her thigh and, at every step, swung back and forth between
her legs like the clapper of a bell, the inscribed disk being heavier and
longer than the ring to which it was attached. The marks made by the branding
iron, about three inches in height and half that in width, had been burned
into the flesh as though by a gouging tool, and were almost half an inch
deep: the lightest stroke of the finger revealed them. From these irons
and these marks, O derived a feeling of inordinate pride. Had Jacqueline
been there, instead of trying to conceal from her the fact that she bore
them, as she had tried to hide the traces of the welts raised by the riding
crop which Sir Stephen had wielded during those last days before her departure,
she would have gone running in search of Jacqueline, to show them to her.
But Jacqueline was not due back for another week. René wasn't there.
During that week, O, at Sir Stephen's behest, had several summer dresses
made, and a number of evening gowns of a very light material. He allowed
her only two models, but let her order variations on both: one with a zipper
all the way down the front (O already had several like it), the other a
full skirt, easy to lift, always with a corselet above, which came up to
below the breasts and was worn with a high-necked bolero. All one had to
do was remove the bolero and the shoulders and breasts were bare, or simply
to open it if one desired to see the breasts. Bathing suits, of course,
were out of the question; the nether irons would hang below the suit. Sir
Stephen had told her that this summer she would have to swim naked whenever
she went swimming. Beach slacks were also out. However, Anne-Marie, who
was responsible for the two basic models of dresses, knowing where Sir Stephen's
preference lay in using O, had proposed a type of slacks which would be
supported in front by the blouse and, on both sides, have long zippers,
thus allowing the back flap to be lowered without taking off the slacks.
But Sir Stephen refused. It was true that he used O, when he did not have
recourse to her mouth, almost invariably as he would have a boy. But O had
had ample opportunity to notice that when she was near him, even when he
did not particularly desire her, he loved to take hold of and tug at her
fleece with his hand, to pry her open and burrow at length within. The pleasure
O derived from holding Jacqueline in much the same way, moist and burning
between her locked fingers, was ample evidence and a guarantee of Sir Stephen's
pleasure. She understood why he did not want any extraneous obstacles set
in the path of that pleasure.

Hatless, wearing practically no make-up, her hair completely free, O looked
like a well-brought-up little girl, dressed as she was in her twirled stripe
or polka dot, navy blue-and-white or gray-and-white pleated sun-skirts and
the fitted bolero buttoned at the neck, or in her more conservative dresses
of black nylon. Everywhere Sir Stephen escorted her she was taken for his
daughter, or his niece, and this mistake was abetted by the fact that he,
in addressing her, employed the tu form, wheras she employed the
vous. Alone together in Paris, strolling through the streets to window
shop, or walking along the quays, where the paving stones were dusty because
the weather had been so dry, they evinced no surprise at seeing the passers-by
smile at them, the way people smile at people who are happy.

Once in a while Sir Stephen would push her into the recess of a porte-cochere,
or beneath the archway of a building, which was always slightly dark and
from which there rose the musty odor of ancient cellars, and he would kiss
her and tell her he loved her. O would hook her heels over the sill of the
porte-cochere out of which the regular pedestrian door had been cut. They
caught a glimpse of a courtyard in the rear, with lines of laundry drying
in the windows. Leaning on one of the balconies, a blonde girl would be
staring fixedly at them. A cat would slip between their legs. Thus did they
stroll through the Gobeline district, by Saint-Marcel, along the rue Mouffetard,
to the area known as the Temple, and to the Bastille.

Once Sir Stephen suddenly steered O into a wretched brothel-like hotel,
where the desk clerk first wanted them to fill out the forms, but then said
not to bother if it was only for an hour. The wallpaper in the room was
blue, with enormous golden peonies, the window looked out onto a pit whence
rose the odor of garbage cans. However weak the light bulb at the head of
the bed, you could still see streaks of face powder and forgotten hairpins
on the mantelpiece. On the ceiling above the bed was a large mirror.

Once, but only once, Sir Stephen invited O to lunch with two of his compatriots
who were passing through Paris. He came for her an hour before she was ready,
and instead of having her driven to his place, he came to the quai de Bethune.

O had finished bathing, but she had not done her hair or put on her make-up,
and was not dressed. To her surprise, she saw that Sir Stephen was carrying
a golf bag, though she saw no clubs in it. But she soon got over her surprise:
Sir Stephen told her to open the bag. Inside were several leather riding
crops, two fairly thick ones of red leather, two that were long and thin
of black leather, a scourge with long lashes of green leather, each of which
was folded back at the end to form a loop, a dog's whip made of a thick
single lash whose handle was of braided leather and, last but not least,
leather bracelets of the sort used at Roissy, plus some rope. O lad them
outside by side on the unmade bed. No matter how accustomed she became to
seeing them, no matter what resolutions she made about them, she could not
keep from trembling. Sir Stephen took her in his arms.

"Which do you prefer, O?" he asked her.

But she could barely speak, and already could feel the sweat running down
her arms.

"Which do you prefer?" he repeated. "All right," he
said confronted by her silence, "first you're going to help me."

He asked for some nails, and having found a way to arrange them in a decorative
manner, whips and riding crosses crossed, he showed O a panel of wainscoting
between her mirror and the fireplace, opposite her bed, which would be ideal
for them. He hammered some nails into the wood. There were rings on the
ends of the handles of the whips and riding crops, by which they could be
suspended from the nails, a system which allowed each whip to be easily
taken down and returned to its place on the wall. Thus, together with the
bracelets and the rope, O would have, opposite her bed, the complete array
of her instruments of torture. It was a handsome panoply, as harmonious
as the wheel and spikes in the painting of Saint Catherine, the martyr,
as the nails and hammer, the crown of thorns, the spear and scourges portrayed
in the paintings of the Crucifixion. When Jacqueline came back... but all
this involved Jacqueline, involved her deeply. She would have to reply to
Sir Stephen's question: O could not, he chose the dog whip himself.

In a tiny private dining room of the La Pérouse restaurant, along
the quays of the Left Bank, a room on the third floor whose dark walls were
brightened by Watteau-like figures in pastel colors who resembled actors
of the puppet theater, O was ensconced alone on the sofa, with one of Sir
Stephen's friends in an armchair to her right, another to her left, and
Sir Stephen across from her. She remembered already having seen one of the
men at Roissy, but she could not recall having been taken by him. The other
was a tall red-haired boy with gray eyes, who could not have been more than
twenty-five. In two words, Sir Stephen told them why he had invited O, and
what she was. Listening to him, O was once again astonished at the coarseness
of his language. But then, how did she expect to be referred to, if not
as a whore, a girl who, in the presence of men (not to mention the restaurant
waiters who kept trooping in and out, since luncheon was being served) would
open her bodice to bare her breasts, the tips of which had been reddened
with lipstick, as they could see, as they could also see from the purple
furrows across her milk-white skin that she had been flogged?

The meal went on for a long time, and the two Englishmen drank a great
deal. Over coffee, when the liqueurs had been served, Sir Stephen pushed
the table back against the opposite wal and, after having lifted her skirt
to show his friends how O was branded and in irons, left her to them.

The man she had met at Roissy wasted no time with her: without leaving
his armchair, without even touching her with his fingertips, he ordered
her to kneel down in front him, take him and caress his sex until he discharged
in her mouth. After which, he made her straighten out his clothing, and
then he left.

But the red-haired lad, who had been completely overwhelmed by O's submissiveness
and meek surrender, by her irons and the welts which he had glimpsed on
her body, took her by the hand instead of throwing himself upon her as she
had expected, and descended the stairs, paying not the slightest heed to
the sly smiles of the waiters and, after hailing a taxi, took her back to
his hotel room. He did not let her go till nightfall, after having frantically
plowed her fore and aft, both of which he bruised and belabored unmercifully,
he being of an uncommon size and rigidity and, what is more being totally
intoxicated by the sudden freedom granted him to penetrate a woman doubly
and be embraced by her in the way he had seen ordered to a short while before
(something he had never before dared ask of anyone).

The following day, when O arrived at Sir Stephen's at two o'clock in answer
to his summons, she found him looking older and his face careworn.

"Eric has fallen head over heels in love with you, O," he told
her. "This morning he called on me and begged me to grant you your
freedom. He told me he wants to marry you. He wants to save you. You see
how I treat you if you're mind, O, and if you are mine you have no right
to refuse my commands; but you also know that you are always free to choose
not to be mine. I told him so. He's coming back here at three."

O burst out laughing. "Isn't it a little late?" she said. "You're
both quite mad. If Eric had not come by this morning, what would you have
done with me this afternoon? We would have gone for a walk, nothing more?
Then let's go for a walk. Or perhaps you would not have summoned me this
afternoon? In that case I'll leave...."

"No," Sir Stephen broke in, "I would have called you, but
not to go for a walk. I wanted..."

"Go on, say it."

"Come, it will be simpler to show you."

He got up and opened a door in the wall opposite to the fireplace, a door
identical to the one in his office.

O had always thought that the door led into a closet which was no longer
used. She saw a tiny bedroom, newly painted, and hung with dark red silk.
Half of the room was occupied by a rounded stage flanked by two columns,
identical to the stage in the music room at Samois.

"The walls and ceiling are lined with cork, are they not?" O
said. "And the door is padded, and you've had a double window installed?"

Sir Stephen nodded.

"But since when has all this been done?" O said.

"Since you've been back."

"Then why?..."

"Why did I wait until today? Because I first wanted to hand you over
to other men. Now I shall punish you for it. I've never punished you, O."

"But I belong to you," O said. "Punish me. When Eric comes..."

An hour later, when he was shown a grotesquely bound and spread-eagled
O strapped to the two columns, the boy blanched, mumbled something and disappeared.
O thought she would never see him again. She ran into him again at Roissy,
at the end of September, and he had her consigned to him for three days
in a row, during which he savagely abused and mistreated her.